Boutique Mademoiselle

Behind Einstein

What's going on?
Beck and Dan are in Paris. They seem to have problems with the plumbing and are trying to solve them with their landlady, Madame Lagache. Thinking that Beck and Dan didn't belong to that environment, she questions Dan. The relationship between the landlady and the young doctor blooms thanks to their similar taste in literature and the constant reverences of Dan. They're conversation goes from Astronomy to Medicine to Loved ones who are gone, and above all, to Love.

Language:
The meaning of this excerpt Behind Einstein comes from Madame Lagache's books: "...the contributions of Einstein could only have been the result of contact with a higher intelligence in the Triangulum galaxy".

Again, Kafka adds plenty of adjectives,and detailed specifications, specially when describing Madame Lagache:
She was a small woman with round shoulders, a ruddy complexion, and hennaed brown hair worn in an abridged pageboy that just covered her
large ears.

In this excerpt Dan comments on the difficulties he encounters with the language.While he talks to Madame Lagache, it is perfectly seen how he tries his best to understand and to be understood.:
"My French wasn't nearly up to this kind of talk. It was more on the level of "How long have you been in Paris?" and "American food is
less good than French food."

A Literary vocabulary is appreciated in this excerpt when the two individuals exchange their interests in history and literature. Names such as Docteur Jean-Charles Gille-Maisani; Ionesco and Camus; Balmat or Paccard appear.

Metaphors:
When Dan referred to Madame Lagache's library :
                    ...a book so old it looked like a sponge.
                    ...as narrow as a section of the stacks at the top of Carnegie Library at Syracuse. I bowed as far as space permitted.

Or he realized the conditions in which the building where he and Beck were were:
                    "She summoned the elevator, which sobbed like a wounded beast as it wended its way down from the fourth floor"

More than metaphoric resourses, Kafka uses the witty and humurous comments that come out of Dan's thinking:
                    "You may borrow what you like." She used the familiar tu. I had become a borrower and a tu at the same moment.".
                    "My schoolboy's knowledge amused her. It was as if I had said I believed the moon was made of Jarlsberg".
                    "We had apparently left les Hebreux to go about their interplanetary affairs."
                    "We sipped what looked and tasted like dirt mixed with clam juice":
                    "You are a Jew," she announced.I hesitated, wondering just what a Jew was in Germaine's mind. Perhaps it was like a Mason,
                     mysterious and powerful. If so, how would this affect my chances of keeping the apartment?"
                    "You are Pisces?" "Aquarius," I told her. She nodded as if that was what she'd meant by Pisces."
                    "During those weeks I'd worked in the terminal ward, I had felt that my soul was...transparent was as good a word as any. But I'd never
                     thought of this as an advantage".
                    "I was glad Germaine saw a gastroenterologist in me, even if she was officially only a janitor. I was just getting started studying for MCATs".

Feelings:
Madame Lagache started to find out things about Dan without him telling her. This startled Dan and made him try to figure out how she could be aware of all those things. One might think that her knowledge and predictability came from her study of the stars.. Dan was surprised of her knoledge:
"Will you take over your father's practice?" she asked out of the blue. I blinked at her. I hadn't mentioned that my father was a doctor. How could she have known I was planning to be an ear, nose, and throat man?"
Still she studied me intently. For the first time, I wondered then if she knew more about my future than I did.

Germaine, how Dan had started to call her after their acquaintance, described Dan's character as "courageous and transparent. You cross the thresholds of time, Germaine had told me now. My shadowlight bore energy seed. In particular,if I understood her, I would be good with ailments of the liver.That meant something to me.

Another hint of misteriousness from Madame Lagache was the fact that without even knowing about Dan's mother she said: "Your mother misses you, she told me. In french this came out, You are mising to your mother. She'll visit. Or contact.
Confusion came over Dan: How can this lady know so much.

The last hint of predictability by Madame Lagache was: "Walk Cautiously in the streets and above all watch for buses...you are in love "

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